A/N: I haven't posted in so long. Yes, you have permission to shoot me. I'm sorry! And I promise I'll try to keep my author's notes shorter. I'm getting better. Sort of.
Disclaimer time! I don't own the Iron fey, or any characters. Like Mab. Only Mab owns Mab.
Now, I suppose that's slightly bending my freedom of speech as a fey, isn't it? But it's not a lie. Not exactly. Sage met his demise protecting her and the Scepter of Seasons from the Iron fey she had control over. Yes, yes, she wasn't queen yet, blah, blah, blah. She was immune to iron. The scum could have done something.
Rowan… It pains me to hear his name. He had never been my favorite, true, and I've taken advantage of his jealousy issues- another weakness to be exploited- more than once, but my second-born son had done the virtually unthinkable.
He turned on his court, his queen, his mother. He was a traitor. Rowan, my son, was dead to me.
He was physically dead to me not much later, slain by his only remaining brother, Ash. (But I get ahead of myself. That is for later.)
Ash.
The name brings me an entirely different sort of pain. True, he was not dead, but his death would have been more comforting than the other, real path he chose.
My son, my perfect, beloved, youngest, favorite son had abandoned me for the half-human spawn of Oberon.
Of course I wanted to kill her. I almost succeeded, but Ash saved her in the end, and I was forced to send troops after him He had to die for his act of treason. Die, or repent. It was the way of our people.
But, no. As I said before, with all my power and might, I cannot stop love.
Though I have to say, I did have other pressing matters. The Scepter of Seasons had been stolen. By Oberon, no doubt. Had we not fought over this before? I was to have custody for my allotted time, no more, no less. The coward wouldn't even admit it.
People had tried to plant doubt in my mind, that it was the Iron fey. They were killing the wyldwod. They killed Sage. They stole Scepter.
I wouldn't believe it. I could not. The Scepter meant more to Oberon and me than any other could possibly know. If it was in the hands of the Iron fey, who could allegedly incapacitate a normal fey with just the simplest of touches…
It couldn't happen. It just couldn't.
I started a war with Oberon. After all, hadn't he made the first move? He would be shown no mercy. No mercy at all.
Ash set out for the Scepter before the war-that I knew. He never came back before- I had feared he'd eloped with the half-breed. Thank whatever powers were working that he didn't. I do, everyday.
The war started. Some soldiers and knights perished. I like to think Summer lost more than Winter this time. But I'm not sure I could ever say it aloud. I cannot lie.
In the middle of the day, towards the beginning of a war that would never reach its climax, Meghan Chase decided to step in. She held the Scepter- I shudder at the thought of her touching it, though it did at the time prove that she had stolen it. In that moment, there was no doubt in my mind Summer was to blame. She fed me lies about the Iron fey. Excuses, they had seemed. Stories to escape her punishment, I had thought. I was so wrong.
Robin Goodfellow and Ash came in with a Thornguard, and it all spiraled down from there.
The Iron fey. They were real. They had stolen the scepter. They were killing the wildwood. They had killed Sage. It was true. All true.
Things got worse.
A/N: Notice the word custody. That is all I ask.
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